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Royals and American media coverage

999 replies

ButteryPuffin · 04/04/2020 23:50

Saw this cover posted on Twitter and noted that it seems the tabloids do indeed exist in the US (amazing, huh?). This is pretty much what you'd expect from the source, and I think it's pretty deplorable, but I am interested to see how the American media in general cover the presence of the former royals who've now arrived to make their home there. Of course we can discuss their coverage of other Royals too and related topics. All welcome.

Link to cover story - please note I'm not endorsing it, I'm just sharing it:
66.media.tumblr.com/79912301ec9c6e0f2cbf902a7a42a540/da60395e577b1897-aa/s540x810/61af854a1eed0d02b6bfa026133d16f8bdb87f41.jpg

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Winterlife · 09/04/2020 01:45

Your facile comments on freedom are gobsmacking.

Your suggesting the state, or you, should decide what I should or should not be allowed to read is even more gobsmacking.

Rupert Murdoch, or the late Roger Ailes, or Jeff Bezos are all entitled to be politically active. They can all direct the editorial slant of the media they own/control. It's up to me, as a reader, to discern what that slant is and what interests it serves. It's also up to me to read broadly. Twas always thus.

Years ago, the owner of Canada's largest bookstore chain pronounced that the store would not carry Mein Kampf. It would not order it for customers who requested the book. Since that day, I have never set foot in that bookstore. I have never purchased books from it online, paying more by ordering books from amazon.com (before it had a Canadian site), and buying other books from local shops.

I read Mein Kampf for a university course, and have no interest in reading it again, and I gave away the copy I purchased for the course.
I have no interest in rereading it. However, I did, and do, object to someone deciding what I am entitled to read or purchase. That's the same with media. I should get to decide what I can read and what I can't, and how that forms my opinions.

mathanxiety · 09/04/2020 02:08

Even more gobsmacked now.

Good thing you don't live in Germany.

The theory that people the best judges of the content of their reading material implies that people would have flung Mein Kampf to the farthest corner of the room after getting to the end of the first chapter.

But we all know this didn't happen, and we all know the effects of that.

We also know what happened in the Brexit referendum, and we know why. People weren't even able to judge the merits of a slogan on the side of a bus.

mathanxiety · 09/04/2020 02:13

The big problem with your theory of Thu 09-Apr-20 01:36:20 is that they hadn't registered the domain name before speaking to the Telegraph. The only reason to talk to the Telegraph before buying the domain name and registering it was to try to claw back some control of the narrative as quickly as possible, under duress.

They can still use archefoundation . org of course, assuming they have bought it and nobody else jumped to their keyboard immediately upon reading the Telegraph piece.

Your posts on this topic are making less and less sense as you go on.

I would still love to hear about the 'strange coincidence' you hinted so darkly about.

Winterlife · 09/04/2020 02:23

Mein Kampf is not banned. People could not purchase it in bookstores because the state of Bavaria owns the publishing rights, and refuses to print the book. But existing copies were always traded. The copyright has expired.

foreignpolicy.com/2017/01/03/sales-of-hitlers-mein-kampf-skyrocketing-in-germany-but-its-not-why-you-think/

The theory that people the best judges of the content of their reading material implies that people would have flung Mein Kampf to the farthest corner of the room after getting to the end of the first chapter.

ROFL. Yes, and having the state, or you, decide this is awful and should be suppressed is so much better, correct?

But we all know this didn't happen, and we all know the effects of that.

Hitler did not win power by majority rule. I doubt the majority of Germans pre WWII read it. Perhaps you should go read some (non banned) history books?

We also know what happened in the Brexit referendum, and we know why. People weren't even able to judge the merits of a slogan on the side of a bus.

As I posted, I don't think Brexit was as much about xenophobia as it was about economics. Xenophobes would be xenophobes whether or not Brexit ever existed.

Winterlife · 09/04/2020 02:32

The big problem with your theory of Thu 09-Apr-20 01:36:20 is that they hadn't registered the domain name before speaking to the Telegraph. The only reason to talk to the Telegraph before buying the domain name and registering it was to try to claw back some control of the narrative as quickly as possible, under duress.

Well, in practicing law for over 30 years, I will say that, since the advent of domain names, the first thing I advise clients to do when choosing a corporate or trademark name is to search to determine if the name is unique. If it's available, the second thing I tell them to do is to secure the domain name and similar names, so traffic isn't redirected. Some register themselves, others ask me to do so for them. The fact someone could secure this name suggests to me either that Archewell wasn't going to be a foundation, or that someone was sloppy.

They can still use archefoundation . org of course, assuming they have bought it and nobody else jumped to their keyboard immediately upon reading the Telegraph piece.

This was registered, likely by someone for them, in October of 2018.

Your posts on this topic are making less and less sense as you go on.

The fact you can't follow my posts is not my concern.

mathanxiety · 09/04/2020 03:09

Gaining power is one thing. Staying there is another. Yet another is standing idly by while millions are murdered by the regime, an outcome that was outlined as a desirable result in the book which was widely disseminated but not at all widely criticised in Germany.

Hitler earned the equivalent of $4.7m from sales of his book before he came to power. This is about 250 times the annual income of a teacher at the time. After coming to power, the book was given to newlyweds and later to every soldier heading to the front. It was circulated in libraries and was quoted and referenced in separate publications.

I haven't said that the state should censor publications, by the way. I have pointed out the ridiculousness of your statements to the effect that people are capable of judging the merits of what they are reading. They demonstrably are not. And that is why the likes of the Daily Mail are dangerous and not an asset to society.

mathanxiety · 09/04/2020 03:11

The fact that archewell didn't yet have its own url means that the Telegraph 'obtained' a look at its patent application and held H& M over the proverbial barrel for a scoop.

Still love to see more detail on your 'strange coincidence' theory.

mathanxiety · 09/04/2020 03:14

I don't think Brexit was as much about xenophobia as it was about economics. Xenophobes would be xenophobes whether or not Brexit ever existed.

Maybe research the meaning of the term 'cause and effect'.

Also - 'economics'?
Surely you jest?

ArriettyJones · 09/04/2020 03:44

The fact that archewell didn't yet have its own url means that the Telegraph 'obtained' a look at its patent application and held H& M over the proverbial barrel for a scoop.

There was a lot of information published a long time ago on the U.K. about patents/copyright applications and internet domain registrations being made on behalf of the Sussexes and at one point either Arche, Archewell, or Arche something else cropped up amongst those and the similarity to the baby’s name was noted. I can’t quite remember the order of events, but this was definitely known and published MONTHS ago, so it’s hard to see how much more The Telegraph can have had than was previously published. If it was a lot more, then H&M haven’t pre-empted it all with their “compelled to” statement anyway, because they haven’t said much more than confirming the name.

So either this isn’t a scoop and is old news, or there is a scoop in there somewhere and The Telegraph are still sitting on much of it.

mathanxiety · 09/04/2020 03:49

The scoop by the Telegraph is accepted as gospel truth by many outlets.

No, they haven't said more, because they know it is bad timing, and what they have said is enough for now, plus it has accomplished its aim of taking back control of the process of the foundation launch.

Any more attempts by any paper to get more info out of them by threatening to publish more, or any further revelations by any paper, is going to look bad in the current situation and they have been careful to include reference to covid-19 in their statement for this reason.

ArriettyJones · 09/04/2020 03:51

Also - 'economics'?
Surely you jest?

We’ve had a huge rise in wealth inequality and poverty here @mathanxiety

Lots of people feeling left behind, some feeling that inward migration kept low wages low, some just feeling ignored and left behind. It’s the whole problem of a disenfranchised white working class that is happening on both sides of the Atlantic. You can’t expect a struggling call centre worker in a depressed provincial town to think “well London is doing well l, the GDP looks good, the bankers are happy, I’ll be content to scrimp”.

It’s the same phenomenon that helped fuel Trump and his MAGA campaign that helped get Brexit over the line and caused the unprecedented northern vote for Boris/The Conservatives in December.

ArriettyJones · 09/04/2020 03:54

Any more attempts by any paper to get more info out of them by threatening to publish more, or any further revelations by any paper, is going to look bad in the current situation and they have been careful to include reference to covid-19 in their statement for this reason.

Oh yes, I’m quite sure there’s a PR power struggle going on behind the scenes.

Going back to discussion of People magazine, I am quite sure Meghan has a direct contact there and briefs them herself.

I don’t buy the simplistic narrative that H&M are innocent victims of a big bad press. That they want privacy. There’s an awful lot going on behind the scenes.

mathanxiety · 09/04/2020 04:42

That's a case of feelings, not economics, and those feelings were massaged by newspapers like the DM and demagogues like Farage.

Brexit wasn't the natural consequence of austerity and the policies that guaranteed the growing gap between rich and poor. The EU was portrayed as the problem and Brexit was sold as the solution. Identifying the themes that would cause the desired Brexit result was done by Cambridge Analytica, funded by Robert and Rebekah Mercer.

The election of Trump and the party of the captains of industry who exported manufacturing jobs abroad wasn't the natural consequence of the post industrial regional depressions in the US. Again, there was unashamed massaging of certain themes that were identified as hot buttons by the Mercers via their data analytics firm.

mathanxiety · 09/04/2020 04:49

Then the big bad press have played right into H&M's hands, haven't they, and their response to MM is impossible to deny.

The Bored Panda link from a pp shows some of the many examples of hostility toward Meghan.

ArriettyJones · 09/04/2020 05:13

That's a case of feelings, not economics, and those feelings were massaged by newspapers like the DM and demagogues like Farage.

Where the money goes, who benefits from national prosperity, tax and welfare policy, minimum wage legislation, poverty statistics, wage levels etc are all part of economics too.

Of course people have feelings about their personal economic and financial situation and of course that influenced their politics. I really don’t think we’d have had Brexit if we didn’t have a lot of very pissed off poor people, and a lot of towns/regions that had been left in economic stagnation 30+ years.

I’m not convinced Farage was as significant in the whole thing as is often imagined (although in a few towns UKIP was hugely popular). Several people I’ve spoken to who have admitted to voting “out” (not something easy to admit to) absolutely hate the man. That’s probably skewed by my social groups (leftish, quite a lot of northerners considering I’m a Londoner) but I really think we didn’t do a proper national examination of quite how complicated Brexit motivations were, and of course many are motivated to adhere to a simple narrative.

ArriettyJones · 09/04/2020 05:15

Then the big bad press have played right into H&M's hands, haven't they, and their response to MM is impossible to deny.

The Bored Panda link from a pp shows some of the many examples of hostility toward Meghan.

I’m not denying she attracted a lot of media hostility, not that some of it was motivated by racism and xenophobia, but again that’s a much more complicated story being presented as a simple narrative of “bad media, nice, private Meghan”.

ArriettyJones · 09/04/2020 05:16

“Nor” rather than “not”.

PineapplePower · 09/04/2020 05:49

Amateur hour. Harry and Meghan did not buy the domain of their foundation name (and several permutations thereof) before their announcement.

Who is advising them, honestly?

Now trolls have taken over archewellfoundation.com with the results seen in this tabloid-y US publication:

pagesix.com/2020/04/08/harry-meghans-website-hit-by-trolls-redirecting-it-to-gold-digger/

mathanxiety · 09/04/2020 06:01

You have no idea what MM is like. I presume you have never met her.

But you are making pronouncements on what she is really like and what is really going on.

Best to put 'I fancy for reasons of my own that I may not have fully examined' before your opinions.

Brexit was nothing to to with economics. It was about lies and the preference for simple answers to complex questions. It was also about pure political opportunism and cynical political game playing.
Where the money goes, who benefits from national prosperity, tax and welfare policy, minimum wage legislation, poverty statistics, wage levels etc are all part of economics too.
But the perception of where the money goes and the suggestion of who to blame for poverty stats is all opinion massaging.

The money goes to the Channel Islands and the Cayman Islands, and the party to blame for poverty, wage legislation, and welfare policy has been in power for the last ten years and counting.

Calledyoulastnightfromglasgow · 09/04/2020 06:06

Ah, le Brexit. We haven’t heard that phrase for a while and it hasn’t derailed a thread for a while.

Anyone who thinks Brexit happens because of the Daily Mail really needs to broaden their reading. Start with the Daily Express.

But as said, it is so much more than that and I still think we don’t really know. But the pp poster hit the nail on the head. It really isn’t xenophobic to worry about the impact of unlimited immigration into low skilled jobs and upon small towns. It’s still not properly discussed and the London left still don’t get it.

Winterlife · 09/04/2020 06:09

The fact that archewell didn't yet have its own url means that the Telegraph 'obtained' a look at its patent application and held H& M over the proverbial barrel for a scoop.

You can't patent a name. It is a trademark application, and the information publicly available is minimal, at best. There is nothing in the application that discloses that the trademark, when approved, will be owned by H&M. So anything The Telegraph would have printed would have been speculation, at best.

Gaining power is one thing. Staying there is another. Yet another is standing idly by while millions are murdered by the regime, an outcome that was outlined as a desirable result in the book which was widely disseminated but not at all widely criticised in Germany.

Proof, yet again, that you understand nothing of the nature of totalitarian systems.

I'm certain that 5 million Ukrainians stood idly by and allowed themselves to be starved to death (insert biga@@ eyeroll here). I'm certain over 20 million Chinese also stood back to allow themselves to be slaughtered by Mao's followers. Totalitarian states rarely come to power with mass support. They gain power in times of economic instability and seize power. Then they methodically destroy all state organs that can remove them. This has been written about widely by historians and political scientists. Perhaps you should go pick up a book?

Hitler earned the equivalent of $4.7m from sales of his book before he came to power. This is about 250 times the annual income of a teacher at the time. After coming to power, the book was given to newlyweds and later to every soldier heading to the front. It was circulated in libraries and was quoted and referenced in separate publications.

Then I must be a Leninist, as I have a library full of his works. Or a Trotskyite. Or a Marxist. Or what any of them would have called a "right wing reactionary", as I have works by Schmitt, Burke, and Sowell. But then again, I also have works by Churchill, Pierre Trudeau, Brian Mulroney, Stephen Harper, Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Lord Conrad Black.

Of course a great orator (Hitler was a great orator) is going to have people reading his books. That doesn't mean they support his ideas.

I haven't said that the state should censor publications, by the way. I have pointed out the ridiculousness of your statements to the effect that people are capable of judging the merits of what they are reading. They demonstrably are not. And that is why the likes of the Daily Mail are dangerous and not an asset to society.

So basically, you are saying that people are too stupid to be entitled to a free press.

MangoFeverDream · 09/04/2020 06:22

It was about lies and the preference for simple answers to complex questions. It was also about pure political opportunism and cynical political game playing

I have no opinion on Brexit as I am neither British nor a European. But this looks like an incredibly simplistic take on the whole thing.

ArriettyJones · 09/04/2020 06:26

You have no idea what MM is like. I presume you have never met her.

But you are making pronouncements on what she is really like and what is really going on.

No I’m not claiming to know Meghan. I’m saying that the various PR machinations of different parties are discernible.

ArriettyJones · 09/04/2020 06:33

But the pp poster hit the nail on the head. It really isn’t xenophobic to worry about the impact of unlimited immigration into low skilled jobs and upon small towns. It’s still not properly discussed and the London left still don’t get it.

Thank you. It’s really strange to me that seemingly everyone in London is still in denial about it all. We have a bit of a mess we should be addressing but it’s apparently more important to deny, deny, deny and blame it all on xenophobia.

I suppose that’s the similarity with the Megxit situation. A lot of people like the simple narratives.

DandyPenguin · 09/04/2020 06:40

I have no opinion on Brexit as I am neither British nor a European. Don’t let that deter you, it hasn’t others Grin

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